By Air, Land, and Sea: Navigating the Climate Future Briefing Series Recap | Article

Greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector matter. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) most recent inventory shows that the transportation sector is responsible for the largest share of emissions in the country at 28 percent.

Surface transportation--cars and trucks in constant motion across the country’s vast highway system--often receive most of the attention. Given that light-duty vehicles represent 59 percent of transportation emissions and medium- and heavy-duty trucks account for 23 percent, the focus on decarbonizing surface transportation is critical. Vehicle electrification represents a major step in this transformation.

But, what about the other 18 percent of emissions in the transportation sector? EESI’s briefing series, By Air, Land, And Sea: Navigating the Climate Future, dove into the opportunities for climate solutions in aviation, at ports, and across public transit. Here we explore the key cross-cutting takeaways from the briefing series.

Public transit is already a climate solution. Wide-spread use of public transit or moving people en mass instead of in personal vehicles, is a key way to reduce emissions and transit systems across the country are taking the lead to reach ambitious emissions reduction targets. In Pennsylvania, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) has installed nine energy storage batteries at a SEPTA substations, which provide 11 MW of storage. The trains use regenerative braking, a way to capture energy from slowing down a moving object. That energy is stored in the batteries and is then used to power the train system. In San Antonio, Texas VIA Metropolitan Transit just entered into a new partnership to run buses on renewable natural gas from landfill biomethane.

Time horizons differ for climate solutions in the transportation sector. While there are promising opportunities to move to electric surface transportation now, electrification of aviation will not be a viable alternative to liquid fuels anytime soon. During the aviation briefing, panelists emphasized the need to employ and scale up solutions available now, while also making significant investments in technological advances that will pay dividends in the decades to come. For example, as laid out in the Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) Act, SAF is a proven alternative to petroleum-based aviation fuel. There are current opportunities to scale up SAF in the United States, which would result in immediate emissions reductions in the aviation sector. At the same time, investments should ramp up to support research such as NASA’s initiatives to improve airplane efficiency using transonic truss-braced airplane wings, composite material for the air frame, and partially electrified aircraft propulsion systems.

Climate work must be mainstreamed across these complex transportation systems. Climate mitigation and adaptation efforts will be most successful and long-lasting when they are integrated into the day-to-day operations of transportation systems. LA Metro, SEPTA, and VIA all see sustainability work as cost-saving,and even revenue generating, activities. It is the smart business decision to reduce emissions and safeguard these transit systems from climate impacts. The Maryland Port Administration takes a similar position. The Port integrates resilience considerations into every capital project design it reviews. Importantly, the Maryland Port Administration not only looks at current resilience concerns, but they also integrate future sea level rise into their decision-making process. With climate considerations embedded across their work areas, these multifaceted transportation systems are better equipped to weather economic and environmental change.

Systems the transportation sector rely on must be updated. With so much focus on electrification, the grid needs to be modernized. This is a key need in Washington where new 2,000 passenger all-electric ferries will be moving across the Puget Sound every 35 minutes. When these ferries come into port, they require 10 megawatts of power for nine minutes, and the grid needs to be able to support this increased usage. Public transit systems adopting electric buses also increase their reliance on the grid. Microgrids and energy stories will need to be elements of the shift to electrification.

Adaptation and resilience matter for the transportation sector. Ports are inherently vulnerable to sea level rise and other coastal climate impacts, and other parts of the transportation sector are not immune. Aviation is impacted by extreme heat, in addition to the delays caused by extreme weather events that are all too familiar to the average traveler. LA Metro has been studying the effects of infrastructure on the environment as well as the environment on their public transit infrastructure. In order to make the system more resilient, LA Metro incorporates new climate science into all infrastructure planning and design. For the Port of Baltimore, adaptation is a business necessity. If the port is consistently flooded and cargo cannot be efficiently moved in and out of port, then the companies who use the port will find an alternative location through which to move their goods. For the port to maintain its viability as a critical point of commerce, managing flooding and preparing for the impacts of sea level rise is the bottom line.

Transportation and infrastructure may yet again become the subject of major legislation in the 117th Congress. Opportunities to move towards decarbonizing all elements of the transportation sector while, at the same time, considering adaptation needs to ensure the resilience of the transportation sector to climate stressors must remain central to this conversation.

Author: Anna McGinn